Arrival

Nick and Holly picked me up at 5am yesterday to drive to Heathrow. The journey as a whole was fairly painless but involved flights to Oslo and then on to Tromso, followed by a 3 hr snowy drive to Senja island.

We are in Mefjordvær, a small fishing village on a fjord surrounded by mountains to the north of the island. We are staying at Mefjord Brygge Lodge which is full of workers in the local fishing industry. I made friends with one of them, a Lithuanian, who gave us 2 large, very fresh cod steaks

Last night there was a party-disco in the bar below us (it seems much of the village turns up once a month to party) but we opted for bed.

Rucsacs are now packed for a reconnoitre.

Gedgrave Broom

This is the old cottage near Orford where 11 of us celebrated my birthday, with a great roast dinner, fine wine and a few mice. It is hidden away on the edge of its own wood. Silent except for the hooting of owls and the sound of partying. A great time was had.

Sausages

"Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made." - attributed to John Godfrey Saxe C19th American poet. I don't care. This weekend I will be eating sausages made by EW Revett & Sons, a butcher in Woodbridge, Suffolk, which makes the finest sausages in the world.

Hooray for the NHS

Nick and I are due to fly to Northern Norway in a fortnight for 3 weeks of ice climbing, first on Senja island and later around the Lavangen area, not far from Tromso. Yesterday we drove down to the Saltdean chalk cliffs for training. Here's Nick making shapes. Not long after taking this photo I pulled a lump of chalk off the cliff with my axe. The lump landed on my knee. After I got over the initial pain I found I could stand, so thought nothing of it - until a couple of hours later by which time the knee was swollen and wouldn't support my weight. After a painful night I hopped into the Accident & Emergency at Whittington Hospital this morning where I was xray'd and told I have no fractures or torn ligaments. Nick is mighty relieved that the trip is still on. He hasn't taken out any insurance yet.

This land is your land

Nothing much to add. I like the message on Woody Guthrie's guitar, too.

The snowman cometh

A big dump of snow is forecast for London tonight. Combined with Rhiannon's 30th Birthday party, mad fun is bound to ensue.

Sometimes when you run

Sometimes when running you can be surprised by a feeling of pure joy, which bubbles up from nowhere and comes from simple pleasure in exercise in the fresh air. At other times you can come out in goosebumps at the beauty of what's around you.

Running along the bund separating Southwold harbour from Walberswick marsh this evening I felt both. Later in the run I saw a Muntjac deer bounding ahead of me through the heather on Walberswick heath. It kept ahead of me for a while then stopped and watched me as I ran past, about 10 metres away.

Street food in Kolkata

Here's a mad and beautiful little gem from Mongo Denoon and the ok catering success.

Chilled pet #1

Chilled pet #2

Dry-tooling at the Westway

Last night we participated in a Fig Four dry tooling competition at the Westway. Nick's friend Ramon had signed us up to take part. Somehow we'd got the impression that this was just a bit of fun and that plenty of the participants were, like us, new to dry-tooling. So our hearts sank yesterday when we read on the Westway website that the competition would feature "elite climbers" and take place on the "super-steep" outside wall. Gulp. The less said about my attempt the better, a complete debacle. Nick did much better. Here's a clip of his first go. Ramon and others climbed superbly. As Nick put it, our effort compared with Ramon's was like watching Rotherham play Barcelona.

Roller-skating Santas

Not quite sure what these two were up to, but they made me smile.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

I took this photo yesterday after seeing the new le Carré film at the Barbican. The film is excellent. This scene seemed to match the mood.

Proper adventure climbing

Here's a video of Alex Honnold, James Pearson, Renan Ozturk and Mark Synott new routing and adventure climbing in the deserts of Chad.

Flags and fireworks

Southwold being Southwold there are flags and bunting everywhere. It's good that events like the Royal Wedding are helping to rid the union jack of its Nationalist and Hard-Right taints. There’s nothing very threatening or exclusive about a flag that’s got a picture of Wills and Kate grinning in the middle of it.

There were fireworks last night on Gun Hill.

It was a clear night and a strong north-easterly wind made for some interesting effects as it blew the light trails inland.